The present disclosure generally relates to electronic mobile devices, and more particularly to electronic mobile devices including mechanisms that facilitate motion of a display to landscape and portrait operating configurations relative to a base.
Some types of electronic mobile devices, such as cellular phones and the like, include displays that are movable by a device user relative to another portion of the device. Such movable displays are provided for various reasons. For example, some displays are slidable to an extended operating configuration to reveal a key assembly supported on a base of the device. As another example, some displays are pivotable to provide a landscape operating configuration that is more convenient for certain activities, such as viewing digital videos.
Some electronic mobile devices even include displays that are first pivotable to a landscape operating configuration and then an extended operating configuration. In some cases, a normally-hidden key assembly is accessible in both the landscape operating configuration and the extended operating configuration. However, these types of devices have several shortcomings. For example, the mechanisms that facilitate motion of the display are typically complex because the display cannot move to comfortable landscape and extended operating configurations by simply pivoting about a single axis. In particular, some of these mechanisms cause the display to pivot using multiple translating pivot points. As another example, some of these mechanisms bias the display to some, but not all, of the display's operating configurations. As such, if the user releases the display before reaching the desired operating configuration, the display can move back to the previous operating configuration. This can lead to frustration if the user perceives the device as unnecessarily difficult to move to the desired operating configuration.